History class is a lot different when you’re touching it. When your desk is the stone walls, the learning materials are the headless Buddha’s and the carvings in the stone.
Long ago, I promised myself my classroom would be more than paper. More than Google drive. More than starred emails. More than the same campus everyday. And more than just books, articles, and lectures.
I stood in my book. I stood in the history book I love so much. I felt its stone underneath my fingertips, and the ghost of its rich history possess me. My desk was the dance halls of Ta Prohm. My school hallways was the maze like structure of Bayon. My learning, my being, my lectures, my articles, was Ankor Wat.
I think about the girl long ago who believed she could not achieve more than paper and pencil. Who doodled in history books. Who looked at the basic stock imagines of things I believed I’d never see. The girl who wanted more than just a classroom. More than just Google docs. More than slide templates and Cornell notes.
She is proud. She is happy. She enjoys this classroom. History is so much deeper when you touch it, when you live it, when you feel it. When it’s more then just then classroom.
